At my ripe old age I guess I can truly say that “I’ve been there – done that!”
Perhaps I should do a kind of Q & A column. I tried it out on my wife, who at the moment is busy renovating our house.
I urged her to ask me a question, she wiped the sweat off her brow, looked me square in the eyes and in her otherwise sweet voice said: “Take off eh, can’t you see that I’m busy?!” Then she pounded a nail in the roof of the garage.
I figured that I should better wait until she comes inside for a cup of tea. She plunked herself down in her comfy chair, so I urged her again to ask me a question.
“How do we get that old heavy freezer out of the basement?” she asked.
Our soon-to-be new neighbour had his farmhouse moved to town, and there were a few construction workers on the property. I looked at them and thought I had the answer to my wife’s question. I walked next door and asked the muscle-bound workers for a small favour, which they were happy to do while taking a short break. The next thing we knew, the basement freezer is loaded in the back of our truck!
My wife just shook her head and asked: “How did you get them to do that?”
“Simple,” I said, “We let them use our water hose when needed, so I just asked for a return favour!”
After some serious thought, I came to the conclusion that I cannot use my wife as a test case, so I thought up some questions on my own, sort of what I thought people would ask. The first question I came up with was: “If a flag pole is 12 feet high from the ground up and I bring it down and lay it on the ground, how long is it?”
Most people would think that it is equally as long as it is high, but that’s not so as it is 14 feet long because two more feet were in the ground!
Then I thought of the old three-master sail schooner days where a 10-foot rope ladder would be hanging over the side with the bottom rung on the surface of the water. The rungs would be one foot apart and the tide goes up six inches per hour, begging the question of how long it will be until three rungs are covered? The answer is never! How come you may ask? Well, the schooner rises with the tide!
When we were farming, we had 15 sheep, and all but eight of them were slaughtered. How many did we have left? Eight of course!
My son was in the farm yard playing with his soccer ball. He kicked it 10 feet and it came back to him. How did he do that? Duh! He kicked it up in the air!
A hen was sitting high up in the roost and dropped an egg onto the concrete floor below, but it didn’t crack. How come? Because concrete floors are hard to crack!
The next question was: “A truck driver is going down a one-way street the wrong way, but he did not hit or impede any of the oncoming vehicles. Why was that? He was walking on the sidewalk!
In my younger days I went eight days without sleep, how was I able to do that? I slept at night! Now I take a nap during the day.
Okay, I guess it is getting a bit tedious, but I do have a few more questions. How can you lift an elephant with one hand? The problem does not exist as you will never find an elephant with one hand!
How many birthdays does the average person have? Only one! The following are anniversaries!
Now let’s get serious! How much dirt is there in a hole three feet deep, six feet long and four feet wide? Think about it! The answer is none, or it wouldn’t be a hole!
Then I asked myself, if a man dressed all in black is walking down a country lane, and suddenly a black car without any lights on comes racing around a bend in the road just ahead of him, and then screeches to a halt and is able to stop before hitting him. How did the driver know the man was there? Because it was daytime!
Let me try a few more. If an airplane crashes on the border between the US and Canada, where do they bury the survivors? Nowhere, survivors don’t need to get buried!
It took an hour for eight men to build a wall. How long will it take four men? No time! The wall is already built!
I’ll be serious now. If you only had one match and entered a dark room that had an unlit oil lamp, a fireplace already loaded with shredded newspaper and kindling wood, and a candle, which would you light first? The match of course!
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world? Mount Everest, it was still the highest mountain even though it had not been discovered.
I asked a clerk at the hardware store how much 30 would cost and he answered $3.00, I followed that up with asking for the cost of 2, which he then told me would be $1.50. I needed three numbers as our house number is 302! On second thought, maybe I’ll leave the Q & A column alone!
